Metallurgy / Chemicals / Rubber & Plastics

According to the US waste plastics export figures recently released by OPIS (Oil price information service), the global waste plastics recycling industry will continue to face a serious shortage of recycled materials, Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation reported.

The export of waste plastics in the United States decreased by 17.7%

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, the export volume of waste plastics in the United States from January to October 2022 is 19,503 containers, about 450,076 tons, 17.7% less than the same period last year. The export countries are Mexico, Canada, Germany, Türkiye and India by volume, and then Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand. For thousands of recyclers in Southeast Asia, there will be few successful purchases of recyclable waste plastics from the United States.

At the same time, ExxonMobil of the United States announced that its 36000 ton recycled plastic factory in Baytown, Texas, had started production. In order to meet the requirements of circular economy and environmental protection laws and regulations, the Group had begun to prepare to increase its production capacity to 450000 tons a year at the above address and other places. Other petrochemical plants have also joined the ranks of waste plastics in order to improve their companies' social corporate responsibility and awareness in environmental protection. In the current situation of more monks and less porridge, the supply shortage is becoming increasingly serious.

Bottleneck of waste plastics market: front-end collection and sorting

In the middle of November, I shared the current situation of waste plastics with the members at the Basel Convention Implementation Committee of the United Nations in Geneva. I explained why the global recycling rate of waste plastics is only 9%, mainly because developed countries do not have enough human resources to do sorting and classification; Developing countries have no system, financial resources and infrastructure to collect waste plastics for sorting, cleaning and processing, and then directly make granular materials. The United States and Hong Kong are good examples. Even though citizens have classified and placed recyclable dustbins separately, 70% to 80% of household waste is processed and granulated into different categories due to lack of resources, and finally forced to be buried or burned. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

I would like to add that many recycling plants in Southeast Asia have closed down due to the lack of sorted waste plastics to process and granulate; This situation will also occur in other developed countries, Europe, the United States and other countries. Many investors think that the market needs many factories to make rubber granules or break, but they do not know that the bottle neck is collected and sorted at the front of the recycling chain. When everyone goes all out to invest, it will only lead to overcapacity of back-end renewable processing enterprises. Under the vicious competition, the tide of bankruptcy will continue to appear in places outside Southeast Asia, Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation reported.

Chemical recycling brings new competition

Large scale investment enterprises now include petrochemical plants and consortia. They quote that their production is "Advance recycling", also known as chemical recycling, which restores waste plastics to original materials and then refines them into different plastics, gasoline or other petroleum products for continuous recycling. Is this technology a breakthrough? In fact, it has always existed, and the controversial issue is to conform to environmental protection, economic benefits and productivity. Although we talk about how advanced it is, chemical recovery requires all materials to be sorted first to achieve effective application. The investment of Petrochemical Group is billions of dollars. It is necessary to make waste plastics into raw materials regardless of the cost. Can we avoid the competition between recycled granules and our own new materials? This will be further discussed in the future. But I am sure that the demand for waste plastics is increasing, the supply and demand of the industry are unbalanced, and the supply chain position has not been paid attention to, which will certainly cause major worries for the development of the industry. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

In the future, as the supply starts to decrease, the industry will be full of huge challenges. You must be mentally prepared to deal with this series of problems!